Autonomous walking excavator can build walls and dig trenches

By Adam Vaughan

A prototype of an autonomous construction vehicle weighing 12 tonnes has demonstrated that it can operate on very difficult terrain without a human operator.

A Swiss-German team has become the first to successfully convert a type of excavator that can “walk” on extendable struts and handle steep slopes so that it can operate entirely independent of a human operator. They used the adapted walking excavator to build a 4-metre-tall stone wall and grab trees for mock forestry work. They also used it to dig …